[fioco]

Some more interesting history:

The history of the area around Willets Point is a political tale that holds its own among Gotham's best stories. It is charged with politics, corruption, power-brokers and a David versus Goliath moral – and, some say the turning point in Robert Moses's career.

It begins in the early 1900s, when a Tammany Hall politician, Fishhooks McCarthy, acquired 1,200 acres of tidal swampland in the area of Queens known as Corona. As the owner of an ash removal company, he needed a lot of cheap land that he could use as a dumping ground. The City granted him a sweetheart deal to use the land — and he did, dumping up to 100 railroad cars of ashes per day. At one point, a 90-foot tall mountain of ash formed and came to be known as Mount Corona. F. Scott Fitzgerald immortalized this wasteland in his classic novel, The Great Gatsby, as Jay Gatsby commuted over the ash heap en route between Manhattan and Long Island in the 1920s. The "valley of ashes", as he called it, was a symbolic divider between the huddled masses of New York and the affluence of Long Island.

In 1934, the City, bowing to pressure from reformers, canceled the contract with McCarthy, and shortly thereafter Robert Moses had the idea of bringing the World's Fair to Queens. He set his sights on rehabilitating the ashen heap. In 1935, he drove part of the Grand Central Parkway directly through Mount Corona. Next, he paved over the entire dump to create the grounds for the 1939 World's Fair. Changes were also made to the waterfront, as landfill extended the land's edge, the course of the Flushing River was diverted and two large tidal gates were built to prevent saltwater from seeping into two man-made fresh lakes. But Moses wasn't able to realize his total vision for Flushing Meadows Park.

After World War Two, Willets point began to be occupied by industrial businesses, including automotive, construction, various types of manufacturing and equipment rental. Soon the area earned the moniker "Iron Triangle" due to crumpled stacks of cars, shiny hubcaps displayed on metal frames and the largest stretch of junkyards in New York City. Though unsightly, unhealthy and deemed unsafe, the area thrived economically.

The 1964 World's Fair presented Moses with an opportunity to realize his vision for Flushing Meadow Park. But to achieve that goal, he needed the land in Willets Point. When he tried to condemn the properties, the local businesses organized and hired a Queens attorney, Mario Cuomo, to defend them in court. He argued the case well, and the court barred Moses from using public money to purchase the land. Some have called this defeat the death knell for Moses, as he retired soon thereafter. It didn't help that in terms of numbers of visitors, the Fair was not a resounding success. Cuomo, on the other hand, gained much notoriety and continued a successful career in law, ultimately serving as governor of New York.

Since that time, Willets Point has been the subject of a number of plans for revitalization. In 1991, the city's Public Development Corporation issued a plan calling for a rezoning in certain parts of the triangle to attract new businesses to the area – and make the less desirable uses of junkyards and auto shops illegal. Over the next decade, two more city planning studies of the area were conducted, as well as a brownfield remediation and waterfront revitalization design workshop in 2001. Included in the design recommendations were an extension of the Flushing Bay Promenade to Willets Point, a promontory leading out onto the Bay, an attractive pedestrian bridge over the Flushing River linking to downtown Flushing and a terraced landscape at the waterfront edge. Then in 2003, the City’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC) invited developers to submit plans for redeveloping the 48 acres of Willets Point. The EDC has yet to make a selection.

From http://www.waterwire.net/World/Neigh...fm?ContID=1739